Ok, I finally have time for an update from the past week:
Well, toilet training threw me for a loop. It was last weekend that we started and early this past week that we stopped (we are revisiting it in 6 months). We did four days of training and for three of them, I spent the entirety of nap time and the evening online (part troubleshooting training/part zoning out) and was on Facebook and MMM sporadically throughout the day while the toddler was awake. My internet use was a definite decision rather than a slip-up. Like, "Fuck it, I'm doing this". I didn't even attempt to justify it.
I don't know why I was so triggered. I'm well aware that you can't make kids eat, sleep, pee or poop. Maybe it's that I feel we have workable parameters around eating and sleeping that don't put our lives at the complete mercy of a toddler. But I was at a total loss with the peeing/pooping. The conclusion I came to was that the toddler likely just needs more time to understand what exactly it is we're shooting for. And while monitoring her all day for accidents in order to rush her to the potty was it's own special kind of hell, we also tried out a different, more doable method that we'll use when the time comes.
I think what was going on psychologically is that I tend to default to "all or nothing" thinking and the method of training we started with didn't allow for time to do anything but monitor for pee/poop accidents. My partner and I tag teamed, but when he was on duty, instead of thinking: "great, I think I'll take a shower" I thought "I haven't done any of my usual things, (shower, exercise, paperwork, etc) so why even bother?" That kind of thinking is so self-defeating. Doing what I can with the time I have is a much better way.
I also tend to get laser focused on a problem until I can figure it out. But according to Meyer's Briggs, I'm an intuitive, which I suppose means that the way I actually solve problems is not through analysis, but by putting things on the back burner for a bit to let them percolate. That's where the zoning out comes in, I think. When I hit a wall with my research, but still haven’t arrived on a solution, I check out for awhile. I'm finding that switching gears to something physical or creative helps me arrive at my solution much better than zoning out online.
A few things seem to work really well for me:
-Keeping the time my daughter is awake and in my care tech-free. It makes a huge difference in the quality of both our lives. And it's an easy line in the sand. I'm also waiting to do screens with her until she's school age, mostly because it's easier for me to just not have the option because I know I'd abuse it.
-Using the productivity tip of "eating the frog". “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it First Thing in the Morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the BIGGEST one first.” — Mark Twain. My frogs are the things I do to live well. Self care, connecting with my partner, doing meaningful projects (and eventually work) being social, taking care of all the mundane daily responsibilities. I find that if I don't attend to those things first, they are unlikely to happen. And it takes literally a minute to get over the hump of not feeling like doing them and into action (I actually like doing them once I get started and the feeling of satisfaction is amazing). Once those things are done, there's still time to do my surfing or other forms of relaxing that take no effort. But if I do the non-effortful things first, they crowd out the important things. First things first.
-Having 3 surf sessions per week has been the arrangement so far that has contributed most to my ability to stay away from the internet outside the appropriate times, log off at a reasonable hour, and avoid distractions. I think it's because I can tell myself that I can pick up where I left off the next day. Also when the 3 days are up, I just have 4 days until it's surf time again. So I tell myself that too. I whittled down my surf days the past few months in order to do other things with my evenings, but I think I'll reinstate those 3 days again and see how it goes. Rather than having a time amount, (ie: 1 hour) I'll do surfing after I connect with my partner and will turn it off 1 hour before bed (8pm).
-Using unexpected downtime for projects, paperwork or a hobby (including reading).
